Tag Archives: apple

I ♥ 

I visited an Apple Store Friday night for the inevitable purchase. I knew I liked Apple and their products, and everything about the experience has confirmed that. The only bad thing is that the purchasing experience is so laid back, and I’m so shy that it is hard to make the first step and approach a salesperson. Once I did, I loved the tiny little box that Rory came in. It was heavier than I expected. I love that I didn’t need a shopping bag; the salesman put a Thank You sticker on the box so the folks at the door knew I had paid. The thing fit in my pocket. I didn’t have to carry a receipt home with me, it was in my inbox waiting for me.

The unboxing ceremony was equally pleasure filled. Just a few tiny pieces in the box, very little waste, very little wasted space, and very little box. The device itself has everything I’ve always asked for and complained about my previous devices: Nice large screen, no physical keyboard, no softkeys, no stylus. Only the good stuff; only what matters.

Tab Switching

Firefox: Control+Page Up, Control+Page Down

Safari: ⌘{ and ⌘}

Camino: ⌘⌥← and ⌘⌥→

Adium: ⌘← and ⌘→ by default, ⌘[ and ⌘]

iChat: ⌘{ and ⌘}

TextMate: ⌘⌥← and ⌘⌥→

Dreamweaver: ⌘` (which is wrong, that is for switching windows)

I don’t know what the appropriate response is: Argh, groan, or sigh.

Are there more than just bugs in Leopard?

My list of changes in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has turned into a list of bugs I have encountered. There are many new features as well, and those are what I intended to document. But it seems most of them have already been revealed. Since this is a relatively new software release, it is to be expected that there are bugs. Oh, well. I guess I’ll just keep adding to my list.

Leopard Changes

In all my reading about Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, I’ve not seen mention of some changes that I’ve noticed since installing.

  1. Using Shift+Command+4 to take a screenshot now shows a cursor with coordinates.
  2. The Print dialog has been updated. It now has a disclosure triangle like Open and Save.
  3. Software Update (at least the first one) now works more like Automatic Updates in Windows. The first window is the same as Tiger, but after you click install, your computer begins to restart and shows a progress bar while installing, locking you out from using the computer. As I mentioned, the first update behaves this way, which may be because it updated the OS; I’ll have to wait and see.
  4. Shift+Command+O opens a new window in slow motion. Control+Command+O does what Shift+Command+O used to do. (Added 2007-11-19 12:00)
  5. The screen no longer turns blue on shutdown, it stays on the desktop picture for the last logged in user. Especially noticable when your computer is attached to a projector when you shut down. (Added 2007-11-25 22:55)
  6. Using Shift+Command+4+Space to take a screenshots of a windows includes the shadow. (Added 2007-11-27 20:38)
  7. In the Finder, when Getting Info on multiple items or when some Get Info windows are already open, the windows sometimes pile up instead of titling. This is probably a bug. (Added 2007-11-27 20:38)
  8. When you begin playing a playlist in iTunes, then switch to another playlist while still playing the first, the pause button changes to stop. When you switch to another app, the stop changes to pause again. This is certainally a bug and may appear in other OSs. (Added 2007-11-28 18:06)
  9. Command+Tab does not always switch apps. At first it looked like this was just a Firefox problem, but it has happened involving other apps as well. I think it has included switching to or from Finder everytime, so that may be the cause. Finder may in fact be the source of that functionality. (Added 2007-12-02 19:19)
  10. Some file icons are incorrect or generic. For example, a .tmpl file from Movable Type shows as a Unix binary, many CandyBar .icontainer files have generic icons. (Added 2007-12-02 19:21)

Leopard Complaints

I watched the guided tour and I have some complaints about Apple’s new OS already. Minor annoyances, to be sure, but I expect Apple to pay attention to such details.

  1. The look and feel is closer, but still not completely consistent: Preview and Mail don’t have the same kind of toolbar buttons as Address Book, Safari, and Finder.
  2. Some windows (the opening progress bar, time machine hard drive insert dialog box) don’t have a unified sunken interface. I guess I’ll be keeping UNO around after all.
  3. Some windows show toolbar names and icons, while others only show icons. That’s still an application preference, not a global one.
  4. Scroll bars look like candy and haven’t been updated to the iTunes 7, which would be more appropriate.
  5. Cover Flow scroll bars don’t conform to the system scroll bar preference.

Update: Walt has delivered his verdict: “Not revolutionary, but it beats Vista.” (via PC World)

iPhone Apps

I was thinking recently that, when the iPhone was released, it was a closed system and the stated reason was that Apple wanted to ensure stability. Well, that didn’t stop people from hacking and making their own apps anyway (apps that go mostly in the way of customization). Well, none of those apps seem to have created instability in the device, so I was glad to see that Apple is working on an SDK for iPhone. Not that I have an iPhone to use. But still, if I were to get one… good to know.

iPhone

In case you’ve been living under a rock (even my mom knows from a source other than me), Apple announced an iPhone on Monday. We talked about it at work today, and the two questions that popped up were about the keyboard and other apps.

Will it run Photoshop? If it does, my boss has claimed that he will divest himself of his fancy, but troubled MacBook Pro. And the keyboard? Even Steve Jobs himself encountered some problems using it. Just watch the keynote and pick out the smattering of “Oops” and mis-pressed keys.

I see there is some trouble brewing as well.

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Best regards,
The Apple Store Team

Firefox Update for Mac on PC

I get the unified application structure idea for Firefox, where the single application ports to various operating systems, but this is a little ridiculous. My copy of Firefox on a PC just auto-updated. I hadn’t heard that an update was due, so I checked out what’s new:

Great! So now Firefox is a universal binary. So why did it auto-update my PC?